Oppenheimer cast walk out of UK premiere in ‘solidarity’ with actors’ strike

The cast of Oppenheimer left a London premiere prematurely to “go and write their picket signs” in preparation for the “imminent” strike by the actors’ union.

On Thursday (13 July), lead actors of Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated war biographic, including Cillian Murphy, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Ramy Malek, walked out of the film’s UK premiere in solidarity with Sag-Aftra.

“You’ve seen them here earlier on the red carpet,” Nolan announced to the cinema’s audience.

“Unfortunately, they’re off to write their picket signs for what we believe to be an imminent strike by Sag, joining one of my guilds, the Writers Guild, in the struggle for fair wages for working members of the unions, and we support them.”

Ahead of the screening, the actors had been walking the red carpet, posing for pictures, interacting with fans and speaking to press.

In a red-carpet interview with Variety, Damon revealed that “once the strike is officially called”, the cast is “going to walk obviously in solidarity”.

“That’s why we moved this [red carpet] up because we know the second it’s called, we’re going home,” he said.

Sag-aftra is expected to rule in favour of a picket line after its negotiating committee had unanimously voted to recommend its 160,000 members go on strike on Wednesday (12 June).

The recommendation comes after weeks of trying to negotiate a contract with companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Warner Bros, failed to pass before the midnight deadline.

Follow along here for real-time updates on Sag-aftra’s imminent strike.

This story is being updated